Dear self-view . . .
Who’s even got a clue . . .
’Bout that red light . . .
Flashing hot, bright . . .
Soma, put the phone away. Facedown on the bed, and step aside. The deed is done. There’s no turning back. Now all you can do is sit and wait . . .
Sit and wait . . .
Sit and—
Turn it back around. What’s good? Nothing yet.
One like!
Shut up, you thirst bucket. One like isn’t shit.
Two likes!
Oh whatever. It’s just Sophat. He likes everything.
Ten likes?
“What the—”
The phone suddenly sank like a weight in my hand. Had I just made a catastrophic mistake? What mess was I getting into by going public in a post, sharing my free-form in the socials? On a Sunday? The lord’s day?! And honestly, did any of it mean anything?
Of course it did.
My hype fever was slowly coming down.
No edit: since Ba was deported back to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, five months ago, it was like I’d been grasping for words. I never had that problem before. Ma and Ba said that when I was younger, they’d put on their CDs, and I’d walk around the house shouting all the lyrics to “It’s Tricky.” I couldn’t shut the hell up. Not when Run-DMC was on. I mean, respect your elders, right?
Truth be told, I always liked talking. I always liked words. I always liked putting them together to make some kind of meaning. Or maybe to capture it. As if the right combination could explain the situation. But these last couple of months, it was like . . . clever lines couldn’t cover this feeling.
But then—then(!), tonight after dinner, when I got that chaotic email from Ba (the first personal one ever), it left me vibrating. Not because he was sharing any breaking news—the guy likes telling me that same old story about my namesake—but because something hit me differently in this timeline, in this context. It felt loaded. Like it was a challenge. Not necessarily from Ba, but maybe from the universe. “Soma” was my legacy. What was I going to do with it?
Okay, so maybe Ba was also going straight to inbox because I’d been struggling to respond to his previous modes of communication. When he FaceTimed me, I really didn’t want to see him in that place. When he texted me, I didn’t want him to make a joke with some not-even-funny SpongeBob meme. When he called me, he shook me with his awkward silences. I loved the guy, but I couldn’t pretend to try to make this new way work. I kept him on read and hoped he wouldn’t notice. But this first email was a sign. He wasn’t ignorant. The guy was working to crack me, but he’d have to wait. I wasn’t ready yet.
Still. His content had me thinking about my content: Step into your legacy.
Maybe I wasn’t equipped to fire back at Ba, but this instruction tapped a nerve. Before I knew it, I’d plotted out some rough and ragged words, propped up the self-view, and pressed the red button. I recorded a pure instinct.
Stop starving, Soma. Put the phone under the pillow. Out of sight and out of mind.
Maybe this was a good time to start getting into some of Ma and Ba’s Buddhist practices. Like relinquishing. I could relinquish. It’s not that hard. All you have to do is . . . relinquish—
“RELINQUISH!” With my face buried deep into the pillow, an animal scream escaped my lips and disappeared into the graveyard of dead cells and now . . . dead dreams. Wow. I really needed to change these covers. They were smelling funky.
In this smooshed stank state, I couldn’t help but wonder, why the hell had I just
done that? Why had I posted that video—unfiltered, unedited, and very unrehearsed? Instincts be damned. I’d never done anything like that before. Sure, whenever I was with Sophat, I’d goof around some, or when I’d listen to a track in my room, I rattled off, but this was the first time ever I was offering out my own verses, exposing my insides like I got a soul or something. Was I being found out? Or was I outing myself? What was I getting into, actually?
Yeah, no. This stench was getting me twisted. This wasn’t going to work, either. This wasn’t going to work at all. I needed to throw the phone across the room, where it would be impossibly out of reach. That way, I wouldn’t be tempted to check my stats as some pathetic reflex.
Thud.
“Well, shit.”
“Soma? Hey, Soma!” An unwanted voice barged into my room, as if closed doors meant nothing.
“What?!” I yelled back, unable to conceal my annoyance.
“Not an adequate response, thank you very much.”
Sis was dripping with sarcasm, and I didn’t have time for it. Since she’d moved back home at the beginning of summer, Dahvy’s voice had consistently taken on a more authoritative (some might say, fascist) tone that was beginning to grate at my chill. Previously, she’d been living and working in Boston after graduate school, but when Ba’s deportation order came up, she insisted on coming back to help. I obviously protested, unsure of why we needed another Kear girl hogging the already sad number of toilets, but Ma said it was a good idea.
Trouble was, Dahvy fancied herself more of a third tyrannical parent than a sister. Every day she was here, the almost-fifteen-year age gap between us felt like it was getting wider and wider. I already had parents, thank you very much.
“I’m doing homework!”
“Okay, well, I need your help.”
“Can you give me, like, fifteen minutes?”
“But it better be fifteen minutes, instead of you rolling downstairs in an hour like you usually do!”
The unfounded accusation obliterated any chill I had left in my body. I. Was. Hot.
“See you in fifteen minutes. OKAY, BYYYE!” I yelled back, hoping that Dahvy would receive my not-so-subtle tone.
Success. Silence.
I leapt toward the wastebasket and, without thinking, instantly buried my arm in layers of some seriously questionable items: old papers, a plastic boba cup from Sweet Journey (remaining bubbles building their own ecosystems), a pair of holey socks, and . . . my phone, intact. Thank God.
“Seventy-two likes?” My eyes squinted to see if they were playing tricks on me. How did the video jump in likes within a matter of minutes?
Before I could even interrogate the development, a model selfie of my puckered best friend took over the home screen. You couldn’t make up this timing.
“Who. Even. Are you?” Sophat’s voice poked through the phone.
“What. Are you. Even. Talking. About?” I matched his punctuated inquisition.
“Bissshhh.”
“Yousabissshhh!”
“Your video.”
“I low-key just posted it. How’d you watch it so fast?”
“What do I even do with my life? I legit look at videos all day long.”
“Okay, and . . . ?”
“Well, yousabish, Yellow-Brown Blues with those Jungle Asian Views! You have eighty-six likes now—check out those stats!”
He was wrong. The video had . . . ninety-two likes? What. Was. Happening?
This was getting way more likes than that Rebel Challenge I posted last year. Sophat bullied me to do it, and while he tossed his hair back and reigned supreme, I barely did the choreo with a smug smile on my face. To us, that mode was actually hilarious, but to everyone else, maybe not so much. At most, it snagged a sorry fourteen likes. This new video was straight sprinting into unknown territory.
“Let’s go!” Sophat shouted, like he was already out the door.
“Is that Sophat?!” Dahvy’s voice returned as if it’d never left in the first place. “Soma, come on. You said you’d help me!”
“Meet me, Emceeeee!” Sophat would not be satisfied until I relented.
“Are you listening to me?” Dahvy would not be satisfied until I relented.
I couldn’t please them both. I needed to deal with one to get the other.
“At the clock, in like twenty minutes,” I instructed Sophat.
“Oh, you are that Beat legacy, loitering on Lowell streets like your ancestors—”
“GOODBYYYE!”
I lodged my phone into my back pocket (shutting down my sweetie), grabbed the nearest hoodie on the floor, and stepped into some kicks. Chick was out of body, of course, and before she could descend downstairs, she needed to take a quick evaluation in the dresser mirror. A pause. I whiplashed for a second glance. Something had me coming back.
My wide, undeniably Cambo nose was always the first feature my eyes caught, a scrunchie held my thick black hair (wispies sparking out like I’d stuck my finger in a socket), and my round yellow-brown face—the one I didn’t care for much usually—well, in this moment, it kind of looked . . . right. Or maybe new. Kind of fresh. Sort of wild. Unknown. Definitely unknown. But working it out.
I was curious about this girl. Between two needy people, in this solo space of stillness, at the reflection of myself, I wondered again . . .
why the hell had I just posted that?
“Soma?!” Dahvy howled once again, breaking my trance and bluntly reminding me of who and where I was at this exact moment: Soma at the precipice.
Down at the landing, I paused before throwing myself willingly into the kitchen of despair. Unfortunately, there was only one way out, and said kitchen door was currently guarded by a creature that sometimes resembled a troll and sometimes a sister. The distinction was blurry.
I wasn’t trying to be hateful, but I knew I was in for it. Not only was I going to be subjected to doing some chore that would take longer than it should, but a lecture would follow. Dahvy couldn’t help herself. She didn’t have Ma and Ba to go off on. She only had me.
From my vantage point, I could somewhat see her arms awkwardly behind her back, like she was trying to snap something together. It was obvious. She needed help.
I had to face the music: pay the troll the toll.
“Motherf—”
Dahvy stood aglow at the center of the kitchen in her traditional Cambodian wedding outfit: a glittery pink blouse with a wide ribbon that floated diagonally across her upper body like some silly pageant sash, and a matching silk sarong that fell perfectly just above her toy miniature princess feet. Everything had gold trimming, making each line of the silhouette sparkle even against the dim kitchen light.
Okay, there was a whole lot of Pepto-Bismol going on, but I couldn’t deny the truth. She wasn’t a troll. Dahvy was a Disney princess—
“Damn it! Don’t just stand there! Get me a Band-Aid!” Dahvy shouted while sucking on her finger like a helpless chaos baby. Never mind. The beauty had become the BEAST.
“What are you doing?” I asked, moving quickly to find her some aid.
“I’m trying to take this thing in.”
“Can’t Ming Ani do it at the boutique for you?”
“She could, but for some reason she keeps offering me more space than I need. She thinks I’m fat.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she says, ‘Dahvy, you fat.’”
Our own self-appointed community tailor was problematic one hundred. Once, Ming Ani made me a dress for this father-daughter dance (barf one hundred), and when I tried it on initially, I remember I could barely fit my head through it. Ming complained I must’ve gained some weight from the initial measurements, and I cried through the whole fitting. After that, Ma promised she’d always be there to make sure Ming was checked for her hateful, body-shaming ways. Apparently, the terrible tailor was back at it. For however much I enjoyed virtually any joke at the expense of Dahvy, body stuff was off-limits. That was code.
I moved toward the sink in search of a Band-Aid, trying not to offer any semblance of reaction to Dahvy’s comment. Best to keep my head low and on instruction. Get in, get out, get the freak away.
Bingo. Ma always stored the box of medical supplies right under the sink. Maybe if Dahvy had tried looking hard enough, she wouldn’t have had to call me down in the first place.
Before I could even hand it to her, hoping this would be the end to my sisterly duties, Dahvy slyly intercepted me with a pouch of safety pins pushed against my chest.
“I’ll put this on, if you help me.” Was it a quid pro quo if you got nothing in return? Yup. I was definitely getting the raw end of the deal. I rolled my eyes, passing the Band-Aid along in exchange for the handful of silver safety pins.
“How?” I asked honestly.
“Just, you know, pull in the fabric as close to my body as possible, and then pin it. But don’t stab me.”
“Oh yeah, like you?”
“Come on, Soma. I need your help.”
With rolled eyes permanently lodged in the back of my skull, I began to grab at the folded fabric around her Barbie waist.
“Dang, this fabric is thick.”
“Just a little more.”
“Why are you doing this by yourself?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to if—” Dahvy stopped herself abruptly but knowingly, like she was headed this way all along. I knew what she was going to say, so why didn’t she just say it?
“Wouldn’t have to, if what?” I asked, staring directly back at her.
The truth was, Dahvy's
wedding was about a month away, but Ma had to make an unexpected trip to Cambodia to get some paperwork sorted out for Ba. It wasn’t exactly her fault. Obviously, Ba wouldn’t be able to come to the wedding now, and while there was a lot of conversation about whether we would cancel it or move it back to some undetermined time, Ma promised she’d be back for the wedding no matter what. There was still time for them to fight about whatever ugly table placements each of them wanted. Dahvy just needed to take her foot off the gas a little.
Dahvy’s eyes moved away from my question. I’d called her bluff, and she seemingly didn’t want to get into it. Not fully, at least. I knew she was calculating her strategy.
“What were you doing up there, anyways? Sounded like you were talking to someone.” On to the next tactic! I had to give it to her. Dahvy was masterful at changing topics with zero need for a transition. She confidently moved right along, regaining control over the conversation.
“You guessed it, talking to Sophat.”
“Before that. It sounded like yelling. For a second, I thought you might’ve been talking to Ba—”
“Nope! Just boring Sophat.” Record scratch. Why was that her assumption? Was she catching on to me not speaking to Ba? Had he said something? What was the agenda here? Yeah, no, I needed to bury the mention of the old man quickly and divert the attention to my sweet, unsuspecting friend. “Sophat lights me up, what can I say? What, you Big Brother now?”
Maybe she needed the waist to be a little tighter.
“Ooh, too tight. Loosen that one up.”
I lessened my grip . . . a bit.
“You think I care? No, it was just loud, so keep it down, okay?”
“There.” It was time for this conversation to be done. I snapped the safety pin into place and tried to step away—
“How do I look?” Dahvy reviewed herself in the floor-length mirror she had propped against the kitchen counter. I looked on, observing two truths: she was drop-dead gorgeous, and if I wanted to leave anytime soon, I had to pay the troll the toll.
“You look . . . good.”
“Oh, wow. Was that some kind of compliment?”
“Never mind. You fat.”
“I’m kidding! Thank you,” Dahvy replied, finally giving me the credit I deserved. She could’ve left it right there in that vaguely complimentary spot, but no. The beast needed to dissolve any semblance of connection with her next underhanded proposal. “And how about you, maid of honor? Your blouse is getting fixed at the store, but I have your sampot jong gk’bun. You could try it on now.”
The cons! It became immediately clear that this was some kind of ploy of Dahvy’s to get me to try on my outfit. Sis was trying to fix her problems by positioning herself as some amateur seamstress. Sorry, but I knew my fit wasn’t going to be right. Those Cambo bridal outfits were made for bodies like Dahvy’s, slim, trim, and flim . . . sy. There would be work to do. I was waiting for the single official fitting, once and only once. We are talking harm reduction here. My eyes darted directly to the second wedding set, conveniently draped across a kitchen chair. Now I really had to go.
“Didn’t Ma say we were going to do the final fitting all together? She’s back next weekend. You know, with Ma there, Ming Ani would talk less sh—”
“Language.”
“Would talk less sh . . . izz about your fit. Why can’t we just wait?” I began to move toward the kitchen door leading to the outside, but I could feel her eyes locked on to my escape route. She was ready on the offense.
“I just want to make sure everything’s perfect, and with Ma cutting it close—”
“She’s back next weekend—”
“With Ma cutting it close, I just want to make sure we have time for all the alterations. I want to get ahead of it.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to wait for Ma.” I continued my creep toward the door, but Dahvy moved in fast, backing me up against my only way out. I could feel the doorknob pushed hard against my lower back. This was a sister standoff. There could only be one survivor, and it sure as hell was going to be me. ...
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